The division previews concludes with the AL West. I try to get a handle on the wins for the core of the team. That includes the starting position players, the starting rotation, and the closer. I use a combination of depth charts, along with news stories to determine those groups. For wins, I use Baseball-Reference WAR from 2019, making conservative guesses for players not in the majors in 2019. As a rule of thumb, add 50 to the core WAR to get to a season win level. When we know how many game will be played, you can adjust accordingly. You can see the spreadsheet with the data here.

Houston Astros

• Position Player WAR: 34.7
• Pitcher Total: 16.8
• Core Total: 51.5

The Astros wind up with the highest core WAR in the majors, one which would indicate they are in for another 100 win season. The Astros, however, are starting to hit a ceiling. Jose Altuve and George Springer play 2020 as 30 year olds, so we not longer expect improvement from those two. While Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman remain early prime players, and Yordan Alvarez is just getting started, most of the lineup is more likely to decline a bit.

In the rotation, Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke are both over 35. Pitchers can fall apart quickly at that age. While I don’t expect that to happen to either of them, I also don’t expect seasons as good as 2019. The older core players account for 31 WAR, so a ten percent fall-off might cost the Astros three wins. That still would be the best in the majors.

We don’t know how much the end of cheating will hurt the offense.

The Astros are in a good position long term, however, as they have lots of young talent. The could swap out an older player for a younger once every year, much as the Braves did in the 1990s. The current setup for the Astros should be sustainable.

Oakland Athletics

• Position Player WAR: 25.1
• Pitcher Total: 11.8
• Core Total: 36.9

The Athletics core WAR comes in a bit low due to two negative WAR position players. Franklin Barreto posted a -0.6 WAR in 2019, and in three tries in the majors owns a .189/.220/.378 slash line, 18 of his 38 hits going for extra bases. In 1285 plate appearances at AAA, however, he slashed .289/.352/.482. That leads me to believe he would be a productive player at the MLB level, with good power for second base. I would be tempted to write him in as a one WAR player for 2020.

The other negative WAR belonged to designated hitter Khris Davis, coming in at -1. Davis dealt an injury in 2019, breaking his streak of consistency. If his injuries healed and he returns to decent production it’s conservative to rate him as a two WAR player. Things going right for those two players could raise the core WAR of the team over 90.

There is also upside if Frankie Montas and Chris Bassitt can pitch a full season. All the Athletics starters tend to limit walks, but Montas and Bassitt take pressure off the defense with a decent number of strikeouts.

In general, this is a team in it’s prime. It won’t take much of a rise in WAR here and much of a decline in the Astros WAR to bring these teams close to even.

Texas Rangers

• Position Player WAR: 12.9
• Pitcher Total: 17.1
• Core Total: 30.0

Some teams have long term personalities, and I tend to think of the Rangers as an offense first, pitching second team. That certainly is not true of the 2020 squad. The offense only claims one player near star potential, Joey Gallo. His 3.3 WAR came in less than half a season of games, and he is at the age when his offense could continue to improve.

The Rangers pitching owns the highest core WAR in the division. The problem with that big number is that two of the starters, Mike Minor and Lance Lynn posted WARs well outside their career norms. Given that they are in their 30s, I would expect a repeat of that level.

To counter that, however, the Rangers added Corey Kluber, whose 2019 season came with a low WAR due to a broken arm. A healthy Kluber might make up for any losses from Minor and Lynn.

All that said, I think the Rangers need to do better offensively to capture the division, or even a wild card. They surprised us on the pitching side in 2019, maybe the 2020 will be the offensive surprise.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

• Position Player WAR: 24.0
• Pitcher Total: 8.7
• Core Total: 32.7

We’ve been waiting a long time for the Angels to pair Mike Trout with another superstar to make the lineup tougher. Anthony Rendon fills that bill. Given many of the linear stats we use, we tend to discount the exponential nature of offense. Rendon over the last three seasons owns a .397 OBP. The Angels third basemen in 2019 posted a .306 OBP. Over 600 PA, due to Rendon, the Angels will use about 54 fewer outs, which works out very nicely to two games. So everyone else on the team, including Mike Trout, gets to bat more. They get more this, produce more runs. If one values a game of runs at 4.5 runs, then Rendon getting on base adds another nine runs to the team beyond Rendon’s contributions. That’s another win to tack on to the Angels.

Unfortunately, some of those PA go to Albert Pujols, who is no longer a championship player. The Angels have two more seasons on his contract, and they seem to prioritize his quest for 700 home runs over winning a division. A two WAR first basemen would push them another three wins toward winning. Other upsides would come from a return of a healthy Justin Upton, and Shohei Ohtani returning to his role as a two-way player.

The Angels should be up at least 15 wins this season, and they could be up as much as 21 wins if they play their cards right. That would give them a shot at the wild card and the division.

Seattle Mariners

• Position Player WAR: 12.3
• Pitcher Total: 5.8
• Core Total: 18.1

The word “meh” comes to mind when describing the Mariners. They are not a tanking team; they’ll probably win seventy games, which is a decent showing for a last place team. I just don’t see anything on the horizon this season that would lead to a surprise. Maybe Shed Long, Evan White, and Justus Sheffield turn out to be something special. Looking at their minor league records, they are more likely to be useful players than star players. I just don’t see a lot of upside with this team.

The Mariners might benefit from a realignment scheme where divisions are reconfigured based on winning percentage.* A division made up of the last place teams might be a good way of preventing long-term tanking, since one poor finish would put the team in a position where with a small amount of improvement they might win the division. A team like the Mariners, near the top of the poor teams, could make the playoffs faster.

*I see this as 32 teams with divisions of four teams. I’m sure it could work with the current configuration as well.

That’s not happening any time soon, so Mariners will use this year to build for the future.

Predictions

Here is how I see the probabilities of the teams winning the division.

• Houston Astros 40%
• Oakland Athletics 25%
• LAnaheim Angels 16%
• Texas Rangers 15%
• Seattle Mariners 4%

This is a very good division, and the Astros to lose. The AL could see two wild cards from the west.